A sudden beam of light overcame the sea of darkness
Gushing forth the sea, a loud cry echoed from the mother’s womb.
Aaradhna!

She was 5 when she felt the droplets of water spluttering through her teeny-weeny head. It was Rain!
She looked high above.
Her eyes although debilitated, dilated!
Drenched in the miracle of the Infinite and mumbling her own Mumbo-Jumbo,
She barely uttered….
I will touch the Sky someday.

She entered her 15th year.
Through her narrow sea of reality
She began to realize the infinity of the Universe.
Yet, the finity in her outshined the infinity the Universe faced.

She turned 18.
She could feel her confidence rebounding back and forth.
Yet, she stood her ground.
She knew that she will not fade away into the sea of darkness yet again.
She knew that she will conquer the Universe.

She was 25.
Conquering the Universe became a child’s talk.
Yet, she held tight.
Her fists – sweaty with anxiety
She held tight.

Where are you now? Where are you now?
She started calling out to her nascent self.
Was it all just a fantasy?
So lost. I am faded…

Gushing through the gradually spreading darkness, the light entered its realm again.
She survived.
The bright light gushed forth the sea of darkness everytime it started fading.
In her own way, she conquered the Universe!
Aaradhna!

Ever had that feeling when you could accurately relate to someone’s description of you? Congrats. You had been Barnumed!

On a fine evening, I started turning over the pages of Elon Musk’s biography with a cup of coffee by my side. My eyes quickly caught attention to the term ‘P.T.Barnum Effect‘ and I immediately recognized Barnum as my close associate who has been with me irrespective of the thicks and thins in my life.

Barnum effect is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them but that are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, aura reading, and some types of personality tests.

Source: Wikipedia

The next time when you could relate the depictions in your horoscope accurately, think. There is a high chance that you have been ‘Barnumed’!

Dear me,
It’s been too long.
Too long that you laughed from your heart.
You keep reminiscing about the things that happened in the past.
You keep thinking about how things would have been, if it had not happened the way it happened.
It’s time to start living in the present.
It’s high time you leave everything behind.
Accept the fact that you made a mistake and move on.
Keep yourself happy.
Keep others around you happy.
Build happy memories.
Live. Laugh. Love.
You are still young and there are several milestones yet to cross.
It’s time to Go, Kiss the World !

I dream of a Dream where dreams turn into Reality;
Where the never ending hustle-bustle within me dies down at peace
My Heart and Mind co-existing with one another affecting neither,
Yet supplementing one another!

Right said my Heart, Left said my Mind;
Reality stood right in front, staring at me.
I stood at a standstill witnessing the roles it played
Waiting for my moment patiently yet with anxiety.
Moments went forth,
While I stood still trying to unfold the intricacies it put forth.

Time flew like a storm.
And one fine day, when I began to realise that
It is Reality which brought me up here
My Dream was long gone.
Leaving me yearning for the perfect dream
Where Dreams turn into Reality.

Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine. Trust me, it takes a minute or two for normal folks to decipher it. But, am not normal. Are you? **Victory Dance**

Assuming that you have deciphered it, let me get to the point. Computers have fascinated me all along. It continues to fascinate me and it will continue to fascinate me until I meet my maker. Guess, I have landed in the right profession after all. Well…That’s debatable. Let me keep that as a topic for another day.

If we were asked to explain about computers in laymen terms, we start with Charles Babbage who is acclaimed as the ‘Father of Computers’ and end up explaining about modern world gizmos like the iPhone, the iPad etc. What if I mean to say that there is a forgotten hero who is responsible for the Artificial intelligence of today? What if I tell you that Siri and Cortana are actually the great great grand kids of that guy who had worked far ahead of his time?

The story of Alan Turing is something which is not greatly exaggerated (It should have been) but modestly appreciated. Alan Turing was granted a ‘Royal Pardon’ in 2013 for his conviction of Homosexuality in the year 1952. That makes up almost 60 years. I neither champion the cause of LGBT nor am I against it. I would like to take a neutral stance but I strongly believe that everyone has a place in this world and it’s certainly not upto one person to judge another. He/She can be judged not by one’s sexuality but by their deeds. After all, it’s the uniqueness of each human being that collectively makes up a society.

Winston Churchill has acclaimed Turing to be the one who shortened World War-II by a span of 2 years and yes he really did. Imagine the countless lives that would have been lost had the war extended for 2 more years! Turing played a pivotal role in breaking Enigma – The German cipher. The Enigma machines were a series of electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines developed to protect commercial, diplomatic and military communication. Alan Turing is said to have saved millions of life by breaking Enigma and intercepting German communications during World War II. It proved to be greatly advantageous to the Allies ultimately leading them to Victory. He achieved an impossible feat racing against time.

The Enigma Machine which was nicknamed as the unbreakable cipher but was deciphered by Alan Turing.

The life of Alan Turing is itself a paradox. He was considered an Intelligent fool. He was a Great mind yet he was Shunned. Although he was considered unstable by many, his legacy never decayed. (“An unstable particle if observed continuously will never decay”). Alan Turing died of Cyanide poisoning when he accidently bit an Apple laced with Cyanide. The mysterious circumstance of his death still remains at debate.

On a lighter note, it is said that Alan Turing was the inspiration behind the Apple logo although Apple has denied it forthright. (Yet another topic for debate?)

The paradoxical nature of Alan Turing’s life reminds me of how paradoxical our world is.

The crooked rule the World while the brightest remain obsequious. We claim to live in a world which is real but ain’t it just a paradox?

Yet, I strongly believe that the Power of change lies within Oneself and We as an unified set of like minded individuals might be able to bring about change in the near future.

Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.

At times, I really wonder whether there is an alternative version of me in some other parallel universe or maybe a some other simulation in which I would have done things differently. Better things.. in which I had never hurt the people I love, neither intentionally nor accidentally. No doubt, this thought might be due to one of my recent obsession with futuristic TV series. We all dream about the future. We all have a haphazard view of how the future (Our Future) is gonna be. Some of us sprint, a few others linger behind while racing towards the future. Yet a few, neither sprint nor stay behind, but let the time take its course. I would place my bet on the former for thinking ahead of time and letting their inner self, take a toll towards its future. But, sometimes however hard we try, things don’t happen the way we want it to. Mysterious things happen and by the time we begin to unravel its intricacies, time flies by. No use in crying over spilt milk, as they rightly said.

One among the other factors which prompted me to write this blog post other than my obsession with futuristic TV series is my own inner self – The confused soul. Of times late, I have been coming across articles giving a glimpse of the futuristic reality rather than existential reality. Self-driving Car, Self-balancing motor vehicle, VR Headsets, surreal laptops without a solid keyboard to type onto and a solid monitor to look at things (and of course, good old Donald becoming the President.) Whoa! It all seems like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. Artificial Intelligence is in the making or it’s already watching over us, maybe.

The future I am yet to live in is gonna be terrific and overwhelming that if I don’t pull up my socks, I will be left behind. Or maybe all these thoughts are from my highly intricate consciousness and it’s better left if I ignore it. Maybe, just maybe….I should let the time take its course and let it decide who I am gonna be. That’s one way of being at peace. But, putting my faith in ‘Time’ reminds me of a code chunk, a simple if-else condition.

if {

}

else{

}

If things happen favorable to me, Wow! Else, if it goes the other way around, WTF!

So, rather than putting my fate on a simple condition with only 2 possible outcomes (It can be a nested if-else… But, let’s not go too technical…Shall we?), I would rather be a while loop who will keep trying every possible outcome until I achieve the desired result. But, the problem with this is that I might end up being stuck in an infinite loop in which no outcome is satiable. In this case, me thinking no Success as a Success, no Victory as a Victory! I will take my chances, though.

So, are you a wanderlust who loves to unravel yourself in the futuristic reality or yet another soul in this existential reality?

Do you remember all your childhood friends? How many are in touch with you and how many are you in touch with? Do you still relish and relive the happy moments you had, a year ago? Do you still ponder over the lugubrious day you had, a year back? Do you still feel qualmish thinking of the mistake you did? Do you still do your chores with an act of vengeance in your heart? Do you feel thankful to your friends who were there in times of need? Do you still take pride in the timely help you did to an unknown person, years back? Do you act with a sense of penance in everything you do?

If most of the answers to the questions are in the affirmative……….trust me, you are a not-so-great person from my point of view. You must be one among the many persons on planet Earth with super-human abilities and from an anachronistic era! And yeah, you don’t exist!

Life is ep(h)emeral – the things that matter today won’t matter, a year later. Take pride in the things you do every day but don’t regret the things you did the other day. The game of life is neither inveterate nor incorrigible. So, don’t be too rigid. Nah, don’t be rigid at all! Science provided the solution for rigidness to a rock and not you! You are invented to define something beautiful and not for something which is already defined by a rock.

We all have a past. But, it’s the shadow that will define us every sunny day. Undoubtedly, life in the form of ‘you’ will pull yourself down, many a time. Yet, you will always find a way to get back at your feet.

However hard you try and however rigid you are in your policies, you will still be guilty to your moral police – the conscience, at one point or the other. You can never be an omniscient do-gooder and you can neither be a prescient harbinger nor be a nescient fool! But, you can be someone great and noble – A person with a sense of ‘humour’ who takes things lightly, the way it is really meant to be taken.

So, add a bit of humorous touch in whatever you do – Be a Beer or be it your Career!

And if you are still wondering why the ‘h’ in ephemeral is within parenthesis, life is ep(h)emeral. Lead your ep(h)emeral life with a sense of (h)umour. Got the point?